Counting text in a range is easy. For example, if you would like count how many times “text” is in a specified range (named data), you can write something like this:=COUNTIF(data,"*text*")

This formula will give you the count of all the cells where Excel found “text” at any place.

But let’s say you want to count wildcard characters in a range, then you can write something like this:=SUM(IF(NOT(ISERR(FIND("*",data))),1,0))

This formula should be entered as an array formula with Ctrl + Shift + Enter. Usually, wildcard can be “escaped” using a tilde (~), but the FIND function doesn’t understand wildcard characters like the SEARCH function does.

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About the Author

The author of Tableau Data Visualization Cookbook and an award winning keynote speaker, Ashutosh R. Nandeshwar is one of the few analytics professionals in the higher education industry who has developed analytical solutions for all stages of the student life cycle (from recruitment to giving). He enjoys speaking about the power of data, as well as ranting about data professionals who chase after “interesting” things. He earned his PhD/MS from West Virginia University and his BEng from Nagpur University, all in industrial engineering. Currently, he is leading the data science, reporting, and prospect development efforts at the University of Southern California.